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Abstract #59011 Published in IGR 16-3
Structural and functional brain changes beyond visual system in patients with advanced glaucoma
Frezzotti P; Giorgio A; Motolese I; De Leucio A; Iester M; Motolese E; Federico A; De Stefano NPLoS ONE 2014; 9: e105931
In order to test the hypothesis that in primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), an important cause of irreversible blindness, a spreading of neurodegeneration occurs through the brain, we performed multimodal MRI and subsequent whole-brain explorative voxelwise analyses in 13 advanced POAG patients and 12 age-matched normal controls (NC). Altered integrity (decreased fractional anisotropy or increased diffusivities) of white matter (WM) tracts was found not only along the visual pathway of POAG but also in nonvisual WM tracts (superior longitudinal fascicle, anterior thalamic radiation, corticospinal tract, middle cerebellar peduncle). POAG patients also showed brain atrophy in both visual cortex and other distant grey matter (GM) regions (frontoparietal cortex, hippocampi and cerebellar cortex), decreased functional connectivity (FC) in visual, working memory and dorsal attention networks and increased FC in visual and executive networks. In POAG, abnormalities in structure and FC within and outside visual system correlated with visual field parameters in the poorer performing eyes, thus emphasizing their clinical relevance. Altogether, this represents evidence that a vision disorder such as POAG can be considered a widespread neurodegenerative condition.
Department of Medicine, Surgery and Neuroscience, University of Siena, Siena, Italy.
Full articleClassification:
2.16 Chiasma and retrochiasmal central nervous system (Part of: 2 Anatomical structures in glaucoma)
